NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/alt/atheism/26760

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-21 | 1.6 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: RELIGION & PRESIDENTS
Date: 22 Jan 1993 00:53:01 GMT
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Distribution: world
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In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Jeffrey Hazelwood) writes:
|> Ok, I just watched Clinton's swearing in ceremony and I couldn't believe how
|> religious is was.  Since I'm in Germany, we saw it live but with German
|> news anchors.  They couldn't believe how religious the whole thing was
|> and found it amusing that the government could carry on in such a way.

Have you considered the possibility that what you are seeing is caused
by an unacknowleged nostalgia for monarchy, and the trappings thereof?

The USA is supposedly a republic, and a good deal of its official life
is carried out by rather dull people in ill-fitting suits.   Monarchies
have a certain style to their public ceremonies, and this is attractive
to a certain kind of American.   You only have to go to Disneyland, or
recall Ron and Nancy Reagan's hobnobbing with the Queen to see it.

So perhaps one of the functions of religion in public life is to supply
the missing panoply and ceremony.   All those robes and sonorous voices.
The choirs and fanfares.   The references to a Heavenly King - oops, I
mean father figure, don't I.

jon.